The rain of the last couple of days has most likely released the last of the overwintering scab ascospores. Continue to check your trees for the next two weeks for scab lesions that may appear. If your trees are scab-free 2 weeks from now, you can reduce your fungicide applications to half rates of Captan every 2 weeks or half rates of Captan plus Topsin M every 3 weeks. I think a good strategy is to add Topsin M in every other fungicide application.

If you can easily find scab at this time, consider applying 2 applications, 7 days apart of Captec, Syllit, Sovran or Flint. The extended wet period over the last couple of days makes controlling existing scab lesions very challenging. If you are finding whole leaves covered with scab now, you will probably be battling scab all season. This means you will need to keep your trees constantly protected with a fungicide to keep scab off the fruit. Speaking of scab on fruit, I did start seeing scab on fruit this week.

Plum curculio. I think this has been a pretty light year for plum curculio. I’ve inspected several unsprayed trees and even on unsprayed trees I find very little plum curculio damage. In sprayed orchards I’ve seen almost zero damage. I did see a plum curculio adult on an apple in an unsprayed tree today. The warm, muggy weather of today, Tuesday, was perfect weather for plum curculio activity. There is a chance that a few more plum curculio may still migrate into the orchard, but I think in most situations, we don’t need to worry about applying any more insecticides against plum curculio. I will check URI’s orchard tomorrow. Imidan was applied once this year, on May 24th. I’m curious if we have any plum curculio injury. If I find new injury, I will let you know. (6/6/07 update – I checked URI’s orchard today and did not find any fresh plum curculio scars. We will not apply another insecticide application against plum curculio this year. We only applied Imidan once on May 24th! – Perhaps I’ll be sorry later, but I don’t think so.)

I am finding some European apple sawfly winding scars and also some EAS that have tunneled into a second fruit. I do no see any orchards where this is a problem.

Our third and final twilight meeting is next Thursday, June 14th at the Big Apple in Wrentham, MA at 5:30. Two pesticide credits are available and the cost is $20 for individuals getting pesticide credits. There will not be a printed notice about this meeting, but I will send an email notice Wednesday, June 6th.

Thanks for calling and next message will be recorded Tuesday, June 12th.